Workers will need to be grouped into categories by "same work" or "work of equal value"

To comply with the transparency and reporting requirements under the Directive (see below), employers will need to group workers into non-arbitrary categories of "same work" or "work of equal value" using objective, gender-neutral criteria (skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions (without undervaluing relevant soft skills).

Job applicants and workers have specific rights to pay transparency

In relation to recruitment, the Directive requires Member States to implement laws providing for::

• the disclosure to job applicants of initial pay or salary range (or where applicable, the relevant provisions in an applicable collective bargaining agreement);
• a ban on questions on pay history; and
• a requirement to conduct non-discriminatory recruitment processes, including gender-neutral job adverts

For workers, Member States must implement laws which:

• make easily accessible objective, gender-neutral criteria for pay, pay levels, and pay progression. There is the potential for national legislation to exempt employers with fewer than 50 workers from the specific requirement relating to the access to pay progression;
• provide workers who make a request with written information on their pay level and average pay levels (by gender) for categories of workers performing "same work/work of equal value" within two months of a request;
• inform workers annually about their right to request the above information on pay level and average pay levels and of the steps they must take to exercise that right; and
• ensure workers are not prevented from disclosing their pay for equal pay enforcement purposes, including banning clauses in contracts prohibiting the disclosure of pay information.

Annual or three yearly reporting of gender pay metrics and remedying of gender pay gaps

Employers must report on set metrics as follows:

• Overall, median and mean gender pay gaps.
• Overall, median and mean gender pay gaps for complementary or variable components.
• Proportion of each gender receiving complementary or variable pay.
• Proportion of each gender in each pay quartile.
• Gender pay gaps by "category of workers" split between base and variable pay.

Thresholds and timing for reporting are as follows (although Member States may impose more onerous requirements):

The accuracy of the report must be confirmed by management after consulting with workers' representatives. Employers must also provide the pay gap information to the relevant national authorities and may also publish it on their website.

A joint pay assessment will be required where a gap of at least 5% is found in any category of workers, which cannot be justified by objective, gender-neutral factors and which is not remedied within six months of reporting.

The joint pay assessment must be conducted in conjunction with worker representatives and must follow prescribed content and disclosure rules. It must be made available to workers, their representatives, the monitoring body and potentially the labour inspectorate and equalities bodies.

Details of what a joint pay assessment must include:

• an analysis of the proportion of female and male workers in each category of workers;
• information on average female and male workers' pay levels and complementary or variable components for each category of workers;
• any differences in average pay levels between female and male workers in each category of workers;
• the reasons for the differences in average pay levels, on the basis of objective gender-neutral criteria, if any, as established jointly by the workers' representatives and the employer;
• the proportion of female and male workers who benefited from any improvement in pay following their return from maternity or paternity leave, parental leave or carers' leave, if any improvement occurred in the relevant category of workers during the period in which the leave was taken;
• measures to address differences in pay if these are not justified on the basis of objective, gender-neutral criteria;
• an evaluation of the effectiveness of measures from previous joint pay assessments.

Communicating and working with worker representatives

Worker representatives play a central role in many of the Directive's obligations including:

• agreeing objective gender neural criteria to enable the assessment of whether workers are in a comparable situation regarding the value of work;
• accessing pay data provided for by the Directive on a worker's behalf, together with additional reasonable clarification and details;
• being consulted on the accuracy of gender pay gap statistics with scope to request additional clarification; and
• being provided with details of a joint pay assessment which may be required to be carried out where a qualifying gender pay gap exists.

"Workers' representatives" are stated to be those "in accordance with national law and/or practice". Explanatory notes explain that a representative "could be trade unions or other workers' representatives" and if there are no worker representatives, "workers should be able to be represented by a representative of their choice".

Compensation and penalties for non-compliance

Member States will need to reflect the Directive's enforcement regime, which provides for full compensation, without fixing a prior upper limit, for breaches and for the employer to bear the burden of proof that the transparency duties are met. A minimum limitation of three years must be set.

The Directive also provides for courts and/or authorities to stop any infringement and to take measures to comply with the legal requirements and for Member States to set effective, proportionate and deterrent fines.

Employers face a multi‑faceted compliance challenge under the Directive. A core hurdle will be in conducting a job evaluation process, underpinned by reliable pay and progression data and consistent hiring processes. Care will be needed in defining objective, defensible criteria for "work of equal value", while managing sensitive communications with worker representatives and employees through the change

Once the Directive provisions are in force, the greatest potential risk for employers is likely to be the prospect of a joint pay assessment being triggered. The six month widow to remedy a difference is extremely limited and closing gaps will be demanding, particularly where collective bargaining structures are entrenched; unions and staff may press for upward adjustments while employers consider balanced mixes of salary freezes and targeted increases. Legal constraints on changing terms (e.g. consent requirements and limits on unilateral salary freezes) further complicate resolving gaps identified. Wider employee relations issues and the potential for individual discrimination claims will all need to be factored in.

Multi-national organisations will need to assess carefully their approach in each jurisdiction to ensure that it meets the minimum domestic laws in place. It will be important to remember that some Member States already have legal obligations in place and these will need to be addressed alongside new laws implementing the Directive to avoid an inadvertent breach.

International employers may wish to consider a harmonised approach across Member States, but one which meets the minimum legal thresholds in each jurisdiction.

Progress towards implementation of the Directive across Member States is as follows:

Implementation

Italy (as at July 2026): The Directive has been implemented. Legislative Decree No. 96 of 7 May 2026 was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 1 June 2026, meeting the 7 June 2026 transposition deadline.

Partial implementation

Poland (as at July 2026): The implementation of the Directive remains partial.

To date, only measures implementing the requires around pay transparency prior to employment were enacted with effect from 24 December 2025. The remaining provisions of the Directive have not yet been transposed into national law.

The most recent draft legislation implementing the Directive was published at the end of April 2026. Under the proposed provisions, the new legislation would enter into force six months after its promulgation.  

Not yet implemented 

Belgium (as at July 2026): Belgium did not meet the 7 June 2026 transposition deadline. On 1 June 2026, the Belgian government formally requested a six month extension from the European Commission. The Commission has declined to grant any general postponement, reaffirming that the Directive's obligations are proportionate.

No implementing legislation for the private sector has been adopted. Although the Directive is not yet directly binding on employers in the absence of national transposition, it may already have indirect legal effect through the principle of equal pay for equal work under EU law.

France (as at July 2026): France did not meet the 7 June 2026 transposition deadline. On 5 June 2026, a revised version of the implementing legislation was submitted by the Government to the Conseil d'etat.

The Labour Minister is considering presenting the draft bill to Parliament during July 2026, with a parliamentary debate from the end of 2026 onwards. On 29 June 2026, the Minister announced that the implementation law will most probably be adopted before the French presidential election in April/May 2027. The expected adoption date has therefore been postponed once again. The Constitutional Court may also be involved in reviewing the law. 

The draft bill covers:

• pre-employment pay transparency (salary range disclosure in job ads, prohibition on requesting salary history)
• worker pay transparency rights (annual right to information on pay levels and average pay by gender)
• a revised gender pay gap reporting framework based on the Directive's seven indicators, applicable to companies with 50 or more employees
• detailed joint pay assessment procedures triggered by unjustified gaps of 5% or more at the seventh indicator
• a penalty framework of up to 1% of payroll (2% for repeat offences within 5 years) plus flat-rate fines of EUR 450 for specific breaches.

The draft also included provisions on the burden of proof and public procurement.

Germany (as at July 2026): Germany did not meet the 7 June 2026 transposition deadline. A draft implementation act was prepared by the Federal Ministry but not published yet. The Federal Ministry seems to plan that the implementing legislation shall enter into force at the earliest in early 2027. Even once in force, central employer facing obligations may not take immediate effect as the Federal Ministry is considering to postpone the effective date, at least for reporting duties, to 2028. However, we will need to wait for the legislative process for clarity on this. 

Italy (as at July 2026): On 5 February 2026, Italy published draft legislation to implement the Directive. The draft has been submitted to Parliament for its opinion and has not yet been published in Gazzetta Ufficiale. Italy is already partially compliant (Legislative Decree no. 198/2006) but the draft introduces new obligations, particularly around the right to information, pay transparency for applicants and rights of protection. The Italian draft provides for "same work" and "work of equal value" referring to national collective bargaining agreement classification systems. It also allows for the comparison of the same work or work of equal value where pay conditions derive from regulations established for multiple organisations that are part of  the same corporate group.  

The Netherlands (as at July 2026): The Netherlands did not meet the 7 June 2026 transposition deadline. The implementing bill was submitted to the Second Chamber of Parlement on 21 May 2026, following Council of State. The bill is currently being considered, with a parliamentary committee report published on 29 June 2026. Additionally a draft implementing decree was published for public consultation on 19 June 2026 (open until 31 July 2026) and a further ministerial regulation setting out detailed definitions, calculation methods and a reporting template was published for consultation on 9 July 2026 (open until 11 September 2026).

It is still expected that the implementing legislation will come into force on 1 January 2027. 

Spain (as at July 2026): Spain did not meet the 7 June 2026 transposition deadline. In April 2026, Spain's Ministry of Labour and Social Economy launched a public consultation on a draft Royal Decree aimed at transposing the Directive, open until 8 May 2026.

On 1 July 2026, the Ministry formally presented a draft Royal Decree amending Royal Deree 902/2020 to the social partners in the context of the social dialogue process. A second meeting of the social dialogue table was held in mid-July 2026, at which the main trade union confederations (CCOO and UGT) submitted a detailed written document to the Ministry setting out their strong opposition to the draft. In response to the union's criticism, the Ministry committed to revising the draft and presenting a new proposal with a view to reaching agreement with the unions, though it has not specified what changes will be made. The first draft should therefore be treated as indicative only.

Please note that pay register and pay audit is compulsory since 2019 and 2021 respectively in Spain. It means that in practice, Spanish companies have their internal data analysis work highly advance. However, it is not sufficient to comply with all the obligations introduced by the Directive. 

The Directive was required to be implemented into the national laws of Member States by 7 June 2026. The Directive's transparency duties for job applicants and workers were due to take effect from that date. That deadline has now passed. Subject to any earlier deadline imposed by national laws, the first gender pay reporting for employers with 150 or more, and those with 250 or more workers will be due on 7 June 2027.

Of the jurisdictions covered in this guide, only Italy met the 7 June 2026 deadline. The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Poland have all failed to transpose the Directive in time. See our at a glance table above for information on the stage at which each Member State is progressing implementation. 

Keeping track of how implementation is being progressed across jurisdictions will be critical to effective preparation; however, many Member States are only now starting to progress legislation, together with supporting tools and guidance implementing the Directive requirements.

Despite this inherent uncertainty, employers must start preparing now, taking into consideration their existing legal obligations which apply in some jurisdictions.

This is particularly important as, according to the adjudication of the ECJ, EU directives which have not been transposed into local legislation within the deadline:

• Have nevertheless direct effect for employers from the public sector (so called vertical direct effect).
• Have no effect in the private sector but have already to be taken into account for the interpretation of existing local law, influencing the understanding of open legal concepts (such as the understanding of "pay" or "work of equal value"). However, newly introduced obligations and those regulated differently from a clear previous local legislation do not have direct horizontal effect in the private sector.  

Immediate actions include the following:

• Look at job structures and identify appropriate analytical tools and methodologies to support equal value assessments, including identifying and documenting gender-neutral criteria. Consideration should also be given to the impact of relevant collective bargaining agreements (at national, sector or company level) as appropriate. Roles should be matched to categories and worker representatives should be engaged where required.
• Draw up and identify a strategy for communicating transparent pay structures – salary ranges and progression rules.
• Scope and audit pay data; confirm what aspects fall within the legal provisions and which workers are in scope. A dry-run pay gap analysis (including by equal-value category) should be considered – bearing in mind local data protection and disclosure rules - and any remedial action that may be required.

Details of more actions.

Other actions include the following:

• Update recruitment processes to reflect the prohibition on questions regarding pay history.
• Establish procedures for managing employee information requests.
• Identify training for staff members conducting equal value assessments and compliance with the Directive's transparency and reporting obligations, including privacy access and controls.
• Develop a strategy for communicating and working with staff representative bodies in line with the Directive's requirements and employee relations issues more generally.
• Keep track of the tools and guidance being developed in each jurisdiction. For example, in Belgium, employer federations are developing compliance tools, with sector-specific and possible online guidance expected, while in the Netherlands, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, in collaboration with social partners, will produce methods and tools to establish pay structures and support reporting ahead of the new law’s entry into force.

International organisations may also wish to look at practical steps already being taken where gender pay gap reporting obligations already exist, such as in the United Kingdom and Italy. While the specific UK legal requirements are different to those of the Directive, the approach adopted to collecting data, making requests, and communicating with employees will be helpful for employers looking to make gender pay gap reports under the Directive for the first time. Likewise, the way Italy has implemented the Directive will allow international employers to assess the practical steps to be taken.